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NASA Land Acquisition Map of Cape Canaveral, Florida, ca. 1961

NASA Land Acquisition Map of Cape Canaveral, Florida, ca. 1961

Cape Canaveral, a strip of land on Florida’s central Atlantic coast, was the launching point for all of the iconic NASA space programs, from the early Mercury flights to the Shuttle missions. NASA submitted this technical map of the land acquisition to the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences in 1961. NASA acquired the land and opened the Launch Operations Center there on July 1, 1962. Later renamed the Kennedy Space Center, it has become a symbol of American space exploration.